West Caldwell veteran served in Navy Armed Guard, manning deck guns on World War II supply ships

Ed Murray/The Star-LedgerMichael Jacullo of West Caldwell was a gunner aboard a World War II ammo supply ship.

In January 1944, Michael Jacullo spent his days and nights fearing what might strike from above or sting from below as his supply ship, loaded with ammunition, traversed the Mediterranean as part of the crucial battle to maintain the beachhead in Anzio, Italy.

Jacullo knew one-piercing hit would mean an almost certain death.

"I’d sleep with one eye open during the really scary days," he said. "You never knew if you were going to get hit. But you knew if you were hit, it was over. Carrying all that ammo, you were a powder keg."

Jacullo, 95, of West Caldwell, was a member of one of the most obscure branches of service during World War II. He was one of 145,000 sailors of the Navy Armed Guard, which manned the deck guns on painstakingly slow and poorly armed supply ships that delivered ammunition and other materials to Allied forces around the world.

"We see Mike as a true American hero," said Paul Grimes, a Vietnam Veteran who is a member of the 50-year-old Verona Lions Club along with Jacullo.

Jacullo, a Newark native, was a late, but willing recruit — enlisting in the Navy in 1943, at age 28. After being drafted, he attended a gunnery school in Little Creek, Va., for about six weeks before departing from the Brooklyn Navy Yard on the SS Edward Rutledge, a Liberty cargo ship.

From his first mission to the northern Africa to the kettle pot known as Anzio, Jacullo put on the bravest face he could, even if his younger batterymates occasionally cried watching fellow boats in their convoy take a fatal hit.

"I guess I was sort of a big brother to some of them," he said. "I was scared, too, but I tried not to show it. When those ammo ships got hit ... they could be a half-mile away or more and you felt it."

If the Liberty ships didn’t explode upon impact, there was virtually no chance of salvaging them. The 2,700 Liberty ships – nicknamed "ugly ducklings" by President Franklin Roosevelt – were built quickly starting in 1941 with thinner steel reinforcements than larger ships.

The speed at which they were built – about 70 days – allowed the United States to build cargo vessels faster than enemies could sink them. And they could carry up to 9,000 tons of cargo – which might include jeeps, tanks or millions of rounds of rifle ammunition.

Yet, despite the sinking of 710 of these ships and the tenuous situations the shipmen often round themselves in, it wasn’t until 1998 that the Navy Armed Guard was awarded an official nod from its country with a congressional resolution.

Jacullo said it’s likely the branch was quickly forgotten about because it was disbanded after World War II.

"But without the Armed Guard, I don’t think we would have won the war," he said. "We were delivering ammunition and supplies and rations and all that. Not everyone thinks about that."